Minnesota Lawyer Blog

Remember the mini-flap over the settlement terms of a lawsuit the Minnesota Attorney General’s office filed against Capital One Bank? Buried in the June report on the AGO by Legislative Auditor James Nobles was the revelation that the suit (filed by then-AG Mike Hatch) was settled for $749,999. If the case had settled for a dollar more, the money would have gone into the general fund for the Legislature to distribute.

About a third of that amount ($249,999 -- there are those nines again) went to Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a nonprofit that calls itself the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families.

If you haven’t heard much of ACORN, you might soon. The group was the focus of a story in the Wall Street Journal that reported that aside from its well-known housing advocacy efforts, ACORN is active in voter mobilization efforts. ACORN is co-managing a $15.9 million campaign with the group Project Vote to register 1.2 million low-income Hispanics and African-Americans, the WSJ article says.

Republicans are crying foul, saying that funds from the $5 billion housing bill will indirectly end up in the coffers of groups like ACORN, which, they feel, have a clear Democratic tilt.

Incidentally, after the Capital One settlement and subsequent distribution of funds, ACORN’s political action committee later endorsed Hatch in his gubernatorial bid. I guess in legal terminology that would qualify as your basic quid pro quo.

Joanne Colan over at Rocketboom tells us that on this day in history, the Greeks entered Troy with their Trojan Horse. We all know how that turned out, hence the saying, "beware of Greeks bearing gifts."

But if you replace "Greeks" with "attorney general offices" — then delete the rest — this phrase might be as apropos now as it was in 1184 B.C.

Where's my point? E-mails recently obtained by the Wisconsin State Journal show that a top detective's final year in the Wisconsin Attorney General's Office was like warfare.

"The last year has been really ugly for me and this retirement was pretty much shoved down my throat," wrote Jim Warren, who led Wisconsin's Division of Criminal Investigation for 10 years, to another agent. "I would have loved to stay on but the constant war with the current administration just got to be too much," another message reads.

Sound familiar?

The big news from state Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles about his preliminary investigation of the Minnesota Attorney General’s office is…that there is no news.

Nobles, you might recall, is looking into allegations of ethical and legal lapses in Attorney General Lori Swanson's office for the purpose deciding if a full-scale probe is warranted.

Swanson and some of her deputies have been accused of pressuring lawyers to give bad advice to state agency clients and to find defendants to fit lawsuits on high-profile topics.

Nobles yesterday sent a memo to the Legislative Audit Commission saying that the preliminary assessment is in process, but didn’t have any more findings to report.

"This is a particularly demanding time for [the auditor's office] since we are in the process of launching six new evaluations and completing work on a number of other audits and investigations," Nobles wrote. "When our preliminary assessment has been completed, I will communicate to you in writing both the results of our assessment, as well as our decision concerning any additional action."

“The decision of whether to go forward with a more expanded investigation is probably several weeks away,” Nobles told Minnesota Lawyer.

Even with the preliminary legislative audit being performed at the state Attorney General's office, the AGO is going ahead with an independent review under the auspices of University of St. Thomas Law School dean Thomas Mengler (on right).

AGO spokesman Benjamin Watson said Mengler's investigation is going on in tandem with that of Legislative Auditor James Nobles, but declined to say how long it would take or what Mengler would be trying to determine.

Nobles decided late last month to begin what he called a preliminary investigation of "any sort of inappropriate, unethical, illegal activity" in the AG's office, also reserving the right to launch a more elaborate probe at a later date.

Is the AGO bringing in Mengler in the hopes that he'll paint a sunnier picture than Nobles? It would be interesting to compare the two reviews once they're completed.

We had a laugh yesterday afternoon at Minnesota Lawyer’s offices. When we put a poll on our main website asking voters whether we thought the attorneys at Minnesota’s Attorney General’s office should be allowed to unionize, votes soon started trickling – and then flooding – in, as people on both sides of the issue frantically clicked the “yes” and “no” options. (The anti-union folks seem to have been much busier.)

The response demonstrated (take your pick) A) the passionate feelings this issue stirs; B) the silly lengths that some on both sides will go to in order to make their point.

We’ve covered this story to some length, but a year after it first emerged, the basic facts remain the same: AFSCME wants to form a union in the AG’s office, the AGO is digging in its heels, lots of lawyers (about one-third) have left the AGO, and morale in the office is bad and getting no better.

In the meantime, we’ve gotten numerous anonymous communications from pro-union folks (both on this blog and via e-mail) about the heavy-handed tactics that continue to be used against AGO employees, but little of substance around which to build a story that wouldn’t be one-sided and full of unsubstantiated speculation.

At the same time, the AGO is as uncooperative with us as it is with other media outlets, refusing to return calls and failing to follow through on Data Practices Act requests. Lori Swanson and her loyalists seem all too happy to see this story go unreported, even if means pushing ethical boundaries. And current and former AGO employees who could potentially contribute to the story are either unwilling to speak for attribution or have a pro-union axe to grind.

That puts us and other outlets in a bind, because while there might still be a story to be told at the AGO, most of what we’ve heard is hearsay, and we can’t use hearsay. We have all the Deep Throats we need on this one.

If there truly is more to be told, we hope a few people from both sides of this issue will drop their cloak of anonymity and let us know.

The Hennepin County Bar Association is running a panel discussion next week that might be worth checking out -- particularly if you've ever done any work for a big insurer or healthcare company. It's called: "What to Do When the State Attorney General Comes Calling?"

The panelists are two former Minnesota Attorneys General -- Warren Spannaus and Mike Hatch. Spannaus served 12 years as attorney general in the '70s and early '80s and is now retired. Hatch was AG from 1999 to January 2007 . He is now special counsel with the Minneapolis law firm of Blackwell Burke P.A.

Among the questions the two ex-AGs will answer are:

-- What is the best way to handle a request from the Attorney General’s office? Do you run for cover? (Hmmm. I am guessing the answer to this one is "no" ...)

-- How should you respond to a CID (Civil Investigative Demand)?

-- What does the AG’s office expect when they forward a complaint to your client?

The one-credit CLE is Jan. 17 at noon at the HCBA offices. (Click here for more info.)

The announcement of pending legal action against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco couldn’t help but call to mind the prominent role Minnesota played in presaging the largest civil suit in U.S. history, and why it might be kept from joining the other states in this case.

Attorneys general from nine states this week announced plans to sue over the cigarette giant’s use of cartoons in an advertising section contained in Rolling Stone magazine, saying it violates terms of the landmark 1998 settlement between 46 states and the tobacco industry that reimbursed states for smoking-related health care costs.

In an effort to prevent the industry from trying to sell to minors, the agreement includes a provision against using cartoons in advertisements. The advertising section in question combines pages of Camel cigarette ads with pages of magazine-produced illustrations on the theme of independent rock music.

Minnesota’s AG’s office wasn’t one of the nine states that announced plans to sue. That could be because Minnesota, as part of the 1998 settlement, agreed not to make further claims to recover tobacco-related health care costs.

It would be ironic if Minnesota, as one of the first states to take on the hitherto untouchable tobacco industry and win, would be kept from joining in a renewed legal action because of those terms.